Rainbow
Feminine · “rainbow”
The bow in rainbow is an archer's bow. Old English regnboga puts rain and bow together because the arc in the sky is the same shape as the weapon, and the word has kept that image unchanged for more than a thousand years.
How old is the name Rainbow?
Rainbow first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Rainbow alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 600 people named Rainbow are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rainbow most popular?
Rainbow peaked in 1980, reaching #3069 nationally. Today it ranks #6546, 3,477 places below that high. See the whole 1980 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From regnboga to Rainbow
The story of Rainbow
American naming in the late 1960s and 1970s produced a distinct group of nature and word names associated with the counterculture: Sunshine, River, Meadow, Rainbow, Harmony, Free. Several of them became conventional afterwards and several did not. The Rainbow Family, whose annual gatherings began in 1972, made the word a marker of that movement specifically, and it also carried an association with children's television of the period. Rainbow's best year in United States records is 1980, near the end of that naming wave, and it has been very rare since; the word has acquired a further and much larger set of associations in the decades after.
Meaning
rainbow
From Old English regnboga, combining regn, rain, and boga, a bow in the sense of a bent weapon or an arch. The same boga gives the modern words bow, elbow and bough. German Regenbogen and Dutch regenboog are the identical compound. The image is of a curved shape rather than of light.
How the name formed
- regnboga
- reinbowe
- rainbow
Related forms: Regenbogen · Arcoiris · Arcobaleno
Pronouncing Rainbow
RAYN-boh
Two syllables with the stress on the first. Identical to the English word, with no adaptation of any kind.
Nicknames for Rainbow
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1971
- Most girls named
- 198028 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3069reached in 1980
- Change vs 2024
- +54.5%17 in 2025, from 11
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Rainbow in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Regenbogen in German — related form
- Arcoiris in Spanish — related form
- Arcobaleno in Italian — related form
Rainbows among us
people named Rainbow are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 94,545 born in 2025 was named Rainbow
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Hollye test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Rainbow's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hollye climbed just as high around 1963, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hollye's path sketches the road Rainbow is walking now.
Rainbow sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Rainbow beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Rainbow in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A single vivid image that needs no explanation anywhere.
- Rain and Bo are both usable short forms with independent lives.
- Impossible to misspell or mispronounce.
- It is an ordinary English noun and appears in sentences about the child.
- The word carries a large and specific set of modern associations.
- In American ears the name is closely dated to the 1970s.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Rainbow
Feminine · #6546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rainbows are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Rainbow are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Rainbow in 2025?
- Rainbow ranks #6546 among US girl names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Rainbow?
- About 1 in every 94,545 US girls born in 2025 was named Rainbow — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Rainbow with classmates?
- Rainbow will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Rainbow
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roseann#6546 · Solveig#6546 · Elona#6546 · Rosette#6546 · Bradie#6546 · Rida#6546 · Gwendalyn#6546 · Lorene#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rainbow? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Rainbow and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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